“I want you to remember the time element and the places. These three people the man called Shewnack had betrayed would be getting out of prison. Coming back right into this very empty country where everybody knows everybody. Think about that. Remember these three would recognize Shewnack if they saw him. Okay?” Tommy nodded.
“So then this Totter hires a man, a stranger so it would seem, to help him at the store. Fire breaks out, the man is burned beyond recognition but left behind a bunch of stuff to identify him as Shewnack, who by then is on the FBI Most-Wanted-Fugitives list. Shewnack is declared dead. Totter collects fire insurance, sells the place, disappears. Then the death notice is published declaring Totter also dead.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Tommy Vang said. “But he isn’t dead. And you are pretty sure that the man who was THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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called Shewnack became Mr. Totter and got rid of Shewnack, and then announced that Totter was dead, and now he has disappeared again.”
“Not exactly vanished this time,” Leaphorn said. “I think we know the name he is using now.” He was staring at Tommy. “Do you agree?”
Tommy exhaled. “Like it would be Mr. Delos, the man who poisons people with fat red cherries?”
“And who, with the latest little packages of cherries, has fixed it very carefully so that if they kill Mr. Delonie, it will be Tommy Vang who brought the poison to the victim, whose fingerprints are all over the bottle, and whose handwriting is on the delivery note.”
Leaphorn waited a reaction to that. Got none.
“Does that make sense to you?”
Tommy nodded. “I am thinking how he had me press my thumb down on the top of the bottle cap. He said it was to make sure it was tight, but it was screwed on tight.” He held up his thumb, inspected the tip, rubbed his hand against his shirt.
“It makes me remember what he told me once, about people. About me. He said when God created humans he let them grow into two groups. A few of them—very few and only males among them—they are the predators. They are like our God of the devil spirits who ate the souls of the others. And the other people. Just about everybody else. They are the prey. The weak ones, he called them. Helpless ones. He said nearly all the Hmong were the prey. But maybe I was the exception. Maybe he could teach me to be one of the powerful ones.” Tommy paused, shook his head.
“Did he try to teach you how to be powerful?” 200
TONY HILLERMAN
“At first, when we were living in that hotel. But pretty soon, he got very angry and gave up. Told me to just forget about it. And then after a while, he would try to teach me things again.”
“Did things happen to cause that?”
“I guess I just kept disappointing him. But finally, I came into the dining room where he had all the silver stuff, and I saw the old woman who worked for him putting some of the big serving spoons into her purse. I told her she better put them back because Mr. Delos would miss them, and he’d call the police, and she’d be put in jail. And then—”
Leaphorn violated one of the key rules of Navajo courtesy. He held up his hand, interrupting. “Let me guess. He was angry. He told you that you should have let her take the stolen stuff down to the exit, catch her there leaving, get hotel security involved, and then let her know that she was thereafter at your mercy. Anytime she didn’t follow your orders, you could bring charges against her.” Tommy was nodding. “That’s the way it was. He sat me down, told me how powerful people get to be powerful. How they get control. But I think he saw it might not do any good, so he just got up and told me he guessed I would always be a prey. That I better start learning. And he walked away.”
“No more trying to make you a powerful person?”
“Not since then. Not hardly any.”
“Well, let’s go then and see if we can find Mr.
Delonie.”
Two pickup trucks and an aged Chevy sedan were parked at the Torreon Chapter House, but the owner of one truck was leaving. No, he hadn’t seen Delonie today THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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and wasn’t sure where he would be. The other truck, on closer inspection, proved to have been left there with a blown rear tire, and no one was inside the building except Mrs. Sandra Nezbah, a sturdily built, middle-aged woman who greeted them with a warm smile. But no, she wasn’t sure where Delonie might be found now. She looked at her watch. Probably at home. And where was that? She took them to a side door and pointed eastward, toward the slopes of Torreon ridge. His was the little house with the flat roof and the big barn behind it, and that vehicle by the barn looked like it might be his. “That great big Dodge Ram truck,” she said admiringly. “Has diesel power, four-wheel drive. Quite a truck.”
17
The truck was still there when Leaphorn pulled up by the driveway, turned off the ignition, and waited the polite Navajo moment for the residents to recognize his pres-ence. Short wait, because Delonie had heard them and stood by the barn door looking out at them.
“
Delonie. We are happy we found you at home.”
“Well,” said, Delonie, still standing at the barn door and looking uneasy. “Is it Lieutenant Leaphorn? What brings you out here? You working for my parole officer these days?”
